Vincent and the Malfunctioning Wardrobe
by Jebus Creiss
Summary: Because practically every aspect of his appearance begs to be ridiculed, and who else besides Yuffie could be silly enough to do it? Ficlet collection; rating may change with new material.
1. Why does this keep happening?

Blah.

Blah, blah.

I really hate these share-icons, throwing off the formatting for the top few lines…

…Anyway. As much as I like the character, it must be said that Vincent Valentine is essentially a walking mess of props. And I wanted to knock up a drabble/ficlet-folder of some sort anyway, just for quick one-off bursts of writing without too much trouble taken to do them. I'll be doing various ones for _specific_ props whenever I feel like it, or whenever someone suggests a really funny idea. But I'll start off with a mickey-taking of the entire ensemble.

(Oh, right. FFVII: not mine.)

* * *

><p><strong>Vincent and the Malfunctioning Wardrobe:<strong>

'…**Why does this keep happening?'**

—**ox-oxo-xo—**

It began with the farmers.

If one wished to take the longer view, of course, it actually began over thirty-three years earlier, with Lucrecia Crescent's decision to offer her baby to experimental research, and Vincent Valentine's decision to stand around moping and thumb-twiddling instead of trying to stop her – which of course led to Sephiroth, and SOLDIER, and Wutai and Nibelheim and Meteorfall and all the rest. And more importantly in this case, Vincent's death and subsequent alteration of his physical appearance.

In one sense, his magnificent death (again) in the ethereal conflagration that was Omega's demise was an ending. In another sense, his emergence from Lucrecia's Grotto was both an ending and a new beginning.

But that isn't really the point. For all that had happened, for all the endings and beginnings, some things hadn't yet changed.

So _this_ 'it' began with the farmers.

—ox-oxo-xo—

It was the third time in three years that AVALANCHE had saved the world. And, as with the previous two times, the end result could only be a massive party. And of course, where else would they hold it, other than at a bar? especially when one of their number happened to own one herself?

But Cid was in a hurry to head back home and pick up Shera for the party, and Shelke was feeling a little poorly with her tapering mako-addiction treatments, and Elmyra wanted to catch up with everyone else too. And so when Elmyra came aboard Cid's vessel just outside Kalm, Vincent Valentine was hurriedly dropped off and left to walk the rest of the way in the dwindling afternoon.

Despite the unanticipated wrinkle in his plans, the gunslinger set off in relatively high spirits, strolling peacefully along the road to Edge – not _precisely_ without a care in the world, given that monsters still roamed the wilds between towns, but still pretty close. (And anyway, most of the land near the Kalm end of the stretch had been converted to farmland, so the monsters there tended to be scarcer.) His tattered crimson cloak fluttered lazily in the breeze of his passage, the descending sun's rays gleaming upon his burnished boots and claw, Vincent began the final leg of his journey, actually looking forward for once to reuniting with the motley crew who had somehow become his friends.

His progress did not pass unnoticed.

Farmers they may have been, but many of these souls had been refugees from Midgar, holing out in Edge or Kalm before Reeve Tuesti's decentralising initiatives lured them out of the bloated towns to scratch out a new living on the slowly recovering soil. In addition, three years without mako energy had allowed for plenty of time to work out alternative ways to power basic electrical equipment, at least for the small-scale needs of farmsteads and hamlets. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that the vast majority of those rural communities knew of AVALANCHE and their heroic proclivities.

And so, when the hard-at-work farmhands saw the instantly distinguishable, presumed-dead hero of the recently resolved Deepground Crisis, ambling along the road to Edge, the farmhands went into wild paroxysms of celebration.

Some went tearing away to their farmsteads to round up their families and co-workers and tell them the miraculous news. Some ran ahead to enlighten those down the track of what was happening behind them. But most of the farmhands simply formed into a jubilant crowd around the person of Vincent Valentine, cheering and whistling and brandishing various farming tools in vaguely militant fashion with merry abandon as they marched alongside the seemingly indifferent gunslinger.

Those further along the road, having been given more time to absorb the news, came better prepared. Picnic baskets were brought out loaded with prandial supplies, and home-made brews of largely alcoholic composition were freely distributed among the rapidly increasing congregation of celebrating citizenry.

It might have surprised the unenlightened observer to note that the red-eyed ex-Turk at the centre of this thronging mass seemed utterly indisposed to outward acknowledgement of their joy. And indeed – because they _did_ know of the AVALANCHE hero – the crowd took no issue with his lack of participation. They knew he wasn't really one for social gatherings. Quite honestly, many of them were surprised that he hadn't made some effort to lose his exponentially growing flock of admirers.

Inwardly, however, Vincent Valentine was becoming increasingly nervous. And as the sun began to dip below the western horizon, and the more well-prepared of those around him began passing out crude brands of tarred wood and bundled wheatstalks to light their way and warn off the monsters which roamed Edge's outskirts, it was becoming increasingly apparent to him that this could turn out very, very badly…

—ox-oxo-xo—

The 7th Heaven was of course abuzz with anticipation at the imminent return of AVALANCHE's lost comrade.

Tifa and Cloud were engaged in the tricky task of encouraging their usual clientele to vacate the premises, in preparation for the reunion party. Not that said 'usual clientele' were all that were present. Reeve had turned up with a new Cait in tow, and was happily chatting away with Rufus Shinra and his Turks in a corner. Marlene and Denzel had somehow managed to finagle a gaggle of neighbourhood children into the bar, and were currently leading the pursuit of Nanaki's fiery tail-tuft with great enthusiasm while Barret sat with a beer in his hand and laughed at him. And Yuffie, the last of those who had already arrived, repeatedly popped in and out of the front door, excitedly waiting for a glimpse of the man who had saved all their lives (not least _hers_) and come back from the dead.

Thus it was that she was the first one of them to notice it.

Tifa looked up at the admittedly not-uncommon spectacle of the youthful ninja trying not to burst into laughter as she burst back through the door. "What is it?"

Yuffie looked up at her, tears of mirth rolling down her cheeks despite her best efforts to keep them pent up. "Vincent's coming!"

The words they'd all been waiting for sent them all rocketing from their positions in her direction. "Do you see him?"

"Nope! But it _has_ to be him!" And Yuffie went charging out the door, the others following in a stomping mass.

They found her gesturing grandly down the road. "I mean, _come on_! Who _else_ could be at the centre of that?" At which point she gave up the ghost and fell over, screeching with laughter as she rolled around clutching her stomach.

And as they looked down that road, at the approaching spectacle, they could not help but agree with the breathless, hysterical Yuffie Kisaragi. Who else indeed would herald their arrival with a yelling, drunken mob, complete with pitchforks and torches?

—ox-oxo-xo—

And at the centre of that mob of thousands, the mob that he had decided not to try to escape from in case those at its outskirts had the wrong idea about why exactly they were there, Vincent Valentine shook his head with a despairing sigh. _I'm never going to live this down, am I…?_

* * *

><p>So how's that? Like it? Because it's all going downhill from here… Next up: either <strong>boots<strong> or **voice**.


	2. No, I don't play with dolls

Meowmeowmeowmeow, meowmeowmeowmeow, meowmeowmeowmeow, meow! Meow…

(Damn share-icons…)

..Ahem. Was replaying Dirge of Cerberus recently (the previous statement may not be taken as a confession of guilt), and got to wondering over a certain item of loot, found in the Extra-Hard Mode missions. So I delayed 'shoes' and got to work on this instead.

**Disclaimer:** _Yoink!_ (The previous statement may also not be taken as a confession of guilt.)

* * *

><p><strong>No, I <strong>_**don't**_** play with dolls…**

—**ox-oxo-xo—**

It must be said: Vincent Valentine tended not to be the person one would wish to go to, should one be wishing for the lowest possible bodycount incurred in the course of a mission's completion. Over the course of his recent operations against Deepground, the ex-Turk had single-handedly killed hundreds if not thousands of the clandestine subsect of SOLDIER. To demonstrate the contrast, it must be remembered that he took exactly _one_ prisoner – two if one counted Azul. (He didn't. After all, (1) Azul was 'captured' by being killed and his body being put in the WRO's morgue, and (2) Vincent ended up killing him again later anyway.)

No-one of consequence had any problem with this. After all, Deepground SOLDIERs had been proven over preceding weeks to be the most brutal, unscrupulous and outright insane force of warriors to maraud the Planet's environs in living memory. They were almost universally regarded as a scourge, unredeemable, and thus to be exterminated without hesitation or misplaced sentiment. And most of those who died at his hands fell to headshots – a merciful end, was the dominant trend of thought. (Not for him. The way he figured it, the longer an enemy was still walking around, the longer that enemy had to keep on trying to kill him. Headshots merely saved time.)

It must also be said: Vincent Valentine tended on the whole to be surprisingly frugal in his expenses, particularly for a gunslinger. Give him a full complement of bullets and a few hundred gil, let him loose in hostile territory, and one could reasonably expect him to not only fund his own costs, but come out of it with his pockets loaded with gil. Of those hundreds if not thousands of enemies dead at his hands, most of them were quite thoroughly looted. Indeed he had gone to considerable effort to maximise his pilfered gains, often to the extent that yet more enemies were encountered and subsequently dispatched simply to pick up a spare handful of gil.

And again, no-one of consequence had any problem with this. Dead SOLDIERs weren't going to complain. (Unless it was Azul, in which case Vincent would just set about killing him again.) There was no point in letting good gil go to waste. And while it was true that the friendly forces following Valentine's entry into Midgar took in the lowest share of looting of all the WRO assault elements, they _also_ came out with the highest rate of survival – and also came out a lot cleaner than most of the others, who had themselves looted the dead. (No 'danger pay' – then again, bugger-all danger. And at least their grisly tales of the bloodthirsty vampire and his massive bodycount were good for a few free drinks afterward.)

So when these factors were taken into account, one might have been surprised to learn that Vincent Valentine had _not_ made it out of the most recent campaign with pockets loaded with gil.

They _were_, however, loaded with something else – something which Vincent had somehow managed to completely forget about.

…Damn that Yuffie.

—ox-oxo-xo—

There is a certain intimidating quality, somehow inherent to mobs of thousands carrying pitchforks and torches. Conversely, there is a certain attractive factor inherent to mobs of thousands carrying pitchforks, torches and – here's the important part – ample supplies of freely distributed alcohol.

Suffice to say, two things happened in very quick succession.

First, the entirety of 7th Heaven's usual clientele backed away hurriedly from the mob and regathered a safe ways down the street, leaving those there for the reunion party standing (or in Yuffie's case, still rolling around) alone outside the front entrance. This had the effect of attracting the attention of the mob's forerunners to their presence. While this didn't result in a miraculous parting of the citizenry, it did allow Vincent Valentine to make his way through to them with a minimum of fuss or incident.

Most of his friends were sensitive to his well-known issues with close physical contact – or at least, were sensitive to the succession of guns pointed in their faces over the years when they tried it. Marlene, however, knew no such reservations. Given what happened when she charged over and glomped the taciturn gunslinger, this could be counted as fortunate.

The mob cheered with joy at the sight, many of its members raising bottles and tankards in approbation. At which point the _second_ thing happened: the expelled clientele spotted said bottles and tankards – and with a great cry sounding suspiciously like 'free booze!', came charging back over to join the mob. At which point, given the jubilant reception the newcomers received, hundreds of theretofore wary onlookers gravitated inward from all directions. The resulting increase pushed the mob into critical mass; it exploded in all directions, euphoric citizenry swarming down the surrounding streets to trigger flashfires of celebration all over the city of Edge.

More to the point in this case, it also gave the reunion party a good thirty seconds to sneak back into the bar and shut up shop before anyone noticed.

A lapse of maybe twenty minutes was enough for the first wave of congratulations and bad vampire-jokes to subside. Then Cid arrived with Shera, Elmyra and Shelke in tow, which of course required that the entire story behind his arrival be told to them. More vampire-jokes were subsequently perpetrated.

All good things come to an end, though. Vincent eventually cleared his throat.

"…Tifa."

"Yes, Vlad-cent?" This effort garnered several appreciative cheers.

"If this is going to go on any longer, I could use a drink."

This statement triggered a certain amount of mortification on the buxom bartender's part, along with a collective gasp from the remaining adults as they realised that alcohol had been all but forgotten (_oh the horror!_) for an entire half-hour. A flurry of scrabbling for chairs and barstools followed while the unconscionably dry state of affairs was remedied.

Vincent sat back with a weary sigh as a brimming glass of single malt whiskey was placed in front of him. He had been waiting for this…

He reached down to his holster, withdrawing his Quantum Cerberus. It went on the table. The others darted wary glances at him, justifiably nervous given their recent overwhelming barrage of smartass comments at his expense.

Tifa stopped, eyeing the tribarrelled pistol resting ominously on the polished surface before him. "Do you want me to put that somewhere safe?"

"There's more."

His gloved hand dipped back under the cloak for another holster, emerging with a partially upgraded S-Griffon semi-automatic. It was followed by a Blast Machine Gun. Then a Bayonet Rifle. Then, the last requiring a certain amount of fiddling at a clip under his collarbone, a massive Gigant Hydra sniper rifle – holster and all – was added to the pile, the weight of which was by this point making the table creak under the strain. Rufus Shinra leant over and picked up the Hydra with a grunt of admiration (not to mention effort – while not as bulky as the Death Penalty, it was still practically a cannon). The table stopped creaking, which made easier breathing for several around the table.

Tifa looked over the gleaming, well-oiled cache of lethal weaponry, her only reaction a raised eyebrow. After all, this was _Vincent_ she was dealing with – normally he didn't even take the things off. "…Is that it?"

Vincent began to nod affirmation, but then remembered the latest addition to his arsenal. A dinky little thing, but it was easily the deadliest of them all. His hand slid into one of numerous hidden pockets in his leather shirt—

…That wasn't it. And he was certain it wasn't one of the numerous weapon attachments he'd picked up either. In fact, it felt like…

Oh, _damn_.

He tried, he tried his damnedest, to keep his expression blank. He almost succeeded…almost. But Vincent couldn't quite rein in his eyes in time to suppress the flickering, fearful glance in Yuffie's direction.

She caught it. Her gaze swung like a lodestone to the pocket in question.

Oh, _double_ damn.

Finding that last weapon was a priority now. Thankfully, the next pocket yielded the object he had been looking for. He pulled out the deceptively fragile-looking pistol, absently stroking its brilliantly polished barrels. The Ultima Weapon went on the table next to his drink, separated from the ostensibly more dangerous weaponry – the chances were it would find some use soon…

"Vincent?"

He felt a tug on his cloak at his side. Turning, the gunslinger looked down at Marlene, with Denzel slouching diffidently behind her. Barret's daughter was looking strangely bashful for some reason, her fingers twisting at the belt-sash of her dress; Vincent didn't pay too much attention to this, his mind scrambling desperately for some way to escape the impending humiliation.

"Hm?"

"Did…" She fidgeted, her eyes darting once over to the stack of firearms on the table; Marlene seemed to have something serious on her mind. "Did you bring us any presents?"

Or not? The entire party burst into stunned laughter. Vincent, however, confined himself to a silent paean to all things holy for the little girl blushing before him.

"Actually… I did find something. I don't know if you'll like it, but…"

A dozen collective jaws dropped. Marlene's face, previously lit up like a beacon of embarrassment at being laughed at, now lit up like a beacon of unalloyed delight at being given a present.

His gauntlet-clad left hand dipped into yet another hidden pocket, finding the stash of loot he had forgotten about weeks ago. The claw withdrew, stretched out, opened.

Reverent fingers reached out to lift it from his claw-sheathed hand. Chocolate-brown eyes filled with wonderment examined it from top to bottom. Vincent took the opportunity, amidst the awestruck silence, to dig out another one and hand it to Denzel. The boy's reaction was more puzzled than anything as he perused his own gift.

"It's beautiful, I love it! Thank you Uncle Vincent!" And Marlene climbed up into his lap, the better to glomp him for the second time in less than an hour; if anything, the exuberance of her gesture of affection was even greater than that of the first one. Then she squirmed round to look at Barret, proudly holding it up for his scrutiny. "See? It's a moogle doll, AND it's all silver! Isn't it pretty?"

Thus prodded, her hulking father's mouth shut with an audible _click_. "Heh, it sure is," he agreed, giving his tiny adoptive daughter a big smile. "Uncle Vincent sure was nice to get it for you." That smile acquired a notably malicious glint of amusement as he looked over at the ex-Turk. "Haha, didn't pick him for a 'moogles' kinda guy though…"

Vincent fixed him with a level stare. "I could have just as easily _not_ given her a present."

Barret got the message. He shut up.

Everyone else _also_ got the message. They didn't actually shut up, but that was only because they were busy congratulating the two lucky children on their new acquisitions. Vincent relaxed, and finally got around to starting on his drink while Tifa stashed his divested weapons. (Except for the Ultima Weapon – better safe than sorry, after all.)

And so followed an hour or so of comparative peace. Congratulations of varying degree and sincerity collected from everyone, Marlene trotted over to the other neighbourhood kids (several of whom had somehow managed to get back in with the reunion party) and opened tenders for consideration regarding what she should call her new moogle-doll. Denzel seemed less happy with his own doll, until Vincent quietly informed him that it would sell for 5,000 gil if he was not satisfied with it; concerns assuaged, the boy trotted over to join Marlene and started loudly speculating on what he'd buy with his anticipated windfall until Tifa overheard and told him off.

Barret and Cloud, being the 'fathers' of the gift-recipients, were relatively fulsome in their praise of the ex-Turk. Elmyra, as it turned out, had a collection of such antique dolls; she and Shera enjoyed an animated exchange of anecdotes which drifted onto antiques in general as Cid half-listened while pacing himself for harder drinking later on. Shelke quietly curled up in a corner, using Nanaki as an impromptu pillow, watching the merry goings-on with almost peaceful mako-paned eyes. Reeve and Rufus chatted amiably between themselves and the four Turks, seemingly completely at home amidst the group who were once deemed their enemies. And Yuffie dashed hither and thither, trading wit and hyperactivity in equal measure wherever she went.

And at the still, calm centre of it all, Vincent Valentine sipped his drink, breathed deep and thanked his lucky stars. Sitting there and enduring the terrible vampire-jokes had been bad enough. He was just glad that moogles weren't about to be added into the mix.

He should have seen it coming.

—ox-oxo-xo—

A certain amount of chaos (pun not intended) always attends the process of putting children to bed. Said process becomes more complex when taking into account several additional children, whose proper location of presence is uncertain. As Marlene and Denzel's bedtimes approached, a flurry of queries, phone calls and pleas for 'just a little longer?' thus issued in all directions; the end result was an impromptu sleepover held upstairs, the dearth of room necessitating the use of children and their bedding as jigsaw pieces. (No doubt those half-a-dozen children immediately proceeded to completely ignore said sleeping arrangements once no-one was watching, as usually happens. But that was neither here nor there as far as the adults downstairs were concerned.)

Finally, it was done. A collective breath was taken in preparation of serious alcoholic consumption…

A silence which was broken, as was often the case, by Yuffie Kisaragi.

"Say, Vinnie…"

A floppy silvered object was flung lazily into the sky, limbs and bobble and little wings stretched outward into a gentle spin by its arc of trajectory. It descended back into her waiting hand. Eyes snapped round to regard the ninja with anger and disappointment.

"…I'm wondering…"

Another floppy silvered object followed the first, imitating its predecessor's looping flight-path from one hand to the other.

"…Just how many…"

And yet another. And those watching eyes snapped wide open at the implications.

"…of these moogles are you carrying round?"

_Triple damn!_

The sudden burst of laughter threatened to carry through the soundproofing and disturb the kids. Vincent stared at Yuffie with almost-hidden horror. When the _hell_ had she gotten close enough to snatch those?

Wearily pinching the bridge of his nose, the gunslinger began to check his pockets. There were rather a lot of them, so it took a while; soon enough though, one more Silver Moogle Doll joined the three already being juggled by the Single White Sneak-Thief of Wutai. In this case, by way of Yuffie's face.

Vincent valiantly sought to mitigate the apparent suspicious state of affairs to the laughing circle of people who had the temerity to call themselves his friends. "Apart from gil and the odd healing or battle item, those dolls were pretty much the only valuable loot the soldiers carried. Most of the money went into the shop machines, to upgrade weapons and equipment." Perhaps some reminder of the other two dolls was in order… "And I thought some people might appreciate them afterwards."

It was initially successful, to an extent. Cloud and Tifa stopped laughing; Tifa even gave him a fond smile to go with his refill. The others continued to laugh (subject to local and personal conditions of course – Shelke, for instance, just blinked quizzically at the whole strange spectacle), but at least he had gone up in their estimation from 'creepy vamp-guy who plays with moogle-dolls' to 'creepy vamp-guy who gives presents to kids when he visits' – which didn't sound all that much better, but was still something of an improvement.

As the three Silver Moogle Dolls landed one after another on the table in front of the gunslinger, however, he had a sneaking suspicion that Yuffie wasn't quite finished yet…

"Uh-huh…"

She held up another doll – this one burnished with rich thread-of-gold plush velvet and topped with a polished ruby for a bobble.

"And what about _this_ one?"

Every eye in the room swivelled round to regard the surprise newcomer. Then swivelled back to regard the perturbed gunslinger.

Hanging his head in as much mortification as the assembled party had ever seen out of Vincent, horribly aware that there was no way he could dodge _this_ bullet, he went rooting around in his pockets again. Gold Moogle Doll after Gold Moogle Doll emerged from pocket after pocket, the pile of antique plush toys growing to veritably mountainous proportions on the centre of the table.

This time, Yuffie was only the _first_ to drop to the floor and roll around laughing.

—ox-oxo-xo—

And as the dreaded onslaught of jokes began to fly, Vincent 'Mooglevamp' Valentine's crimson orbs fixed longingly on the Ultima Weapon, its sleek form almost buried under the avalanche of moogles heaped before him.

Yuffie would _pay_.

* * *

><p>(BTW: If you don't know that much about DoC, there's an infinitely repeatable side-mission in the later chapters, the prize for which is a Gold Moogle Doll. How could I not take the mickey out of that?)<p>

Next up? Probably boots.


	3. Of course I have feet!

So, one new laptop later, I'm back. Found this lurking on the portable drive.

FFVII/DoC: not mine.

* * *

><p><strong>Vincent and the Malfunctioning Wardrobe<strong>

**Chapter 3: 'Of course I have feet!'**

—**ox-oxo-xo—**

It was an easy mistake for most of Vincent's acquaintances to make. The great majority of them had known him for three years now, even if they were not graced with his presence for most of that span of time. In addition, the frenetic, high-stress environment generated by the initial circumstances of their meeting during the days of AVALANCHE had been unusually conducive to the baring of closeted skeletons. (Not that such revelations had been met with equanimity on the part of those whose secrets saw the light, far from it – but it could not help but happen when wherever they seemed to go, legacies of that dusty past tended to bite them all on the collective posterior. In that light, the entire Deepground saga could be construed as but one more episode of being unwillingly ass-bitten on Vincent's part.) But amongst all the drama and adventures (read: collective embarrassment randomly interspersed with terror and/or inconsequential violence) that each of them had endured, it was easy for the others to forget that with the possible exception of Shelke, none of them had ever known him _before_ he'd entered his long sleep.

The mistake they made was in assuming that Vincent Valentine was a naturally miserable individual.

Certainly, for a long time now he had brooded and lingered on his sins and a variety of related existential conundrums. After all, he'd been suckered into abandoning the woman he loved, then killed, experimented on and brought back to life with several demons as live-in guests when he dared protest – not only by the man who'd shot him, but by the woman who'd he fallen in love with to boot. And if that wasn't enough, he was to all appearances an _immortal_ now. Surely mortals could not be built for that. Nanaki quietly angsted enough about being long-lived, and he'd been _born_ that way, for Planet's sake! And conversely, if he was capable of 'sleeping it off' for three _decades_, why should he not wallow for as long as he felt the need? More than once since Meteorfall he'd toyed with the idea of going back to sleep for three centuries and seeing if _that_ worked.

Not that three decades' slumber had not been effective, in their own way. He functioned well enough. Well enough to kill Hojo twice, or at least analogues thereof. Well enough to gain Lucrecia's forgiveness – and more recently, to forgive Lucrecia her own trespasses. Well enough to save the world. Even well enough to lose the most potent of his demons. Perhaps even well enough to see his way towards forgiving himself for his own catastrophic lapse in judgement, all those years ago.

The mistake the others made was not in identifying his sin, but in why he had adjudged it such a sin in the first place. It was a mistake derived for the most part simply from their lack of background detail in formulating their own opinions of the events and motivations surrounding Sephiroth's birth – but partially because most of them were not in the habit of thinking like Turks.

Turks were professional. They were cold, calculating. They examined their mission from all angles before committing themselves. Emotions had their place, duty and loyalty held their own, ostensibly more important place – but _clarity_ came first and foremost in the life of a Turk; and this was reflected in their hiring policies, as it had been for as long as there had _been_ Turks, even if it had been slowly, subtly perverted over the course of thirty years. A good Turk's loyalty to the Company was based not on slavish idealism, but on the enlightened decision that placing their loyalty in Shinra was the best decision they could make for themselves.

Vincent had been a good Turk. Vincent had been a professional. And then with the seemingly random dissemination of a single personnel file, Vincent had been bamboozled into reassigning himself away from his stated mission for a year and a half by a mere scientist. It was his _professionalism_ that had failed in such calamitous fashion – that his romantic leanings of the time for his assignment should have _reinforced_ that professionalism only rubbed salt in the wound when the consequences of his failure came home to roost in his chest in hot leaden form.

At this point, you may be asking yourself what any of this has to do with the situation Vincent currently found himself in.

The answer to that question, and the root of the mistake that his acquaintances made about his mindset, was that Vincent yet considered himself a professional, if a failed one. A small but significant part of his behaviour in present company over the past three years, almost incidental beside the very real depression and apathy, was simply that Vincent considered himself a monster – and so had decided, at least on some level, to _act_ the part in a professional manner. (Not that this was something he would admit for a long time, if only because Yuffie would have a field day with it.

Or so he'd thought…

_Damn_ that Yuffie!)

More to the point: Vincent's most recent mission had been to eradicate Deepground. And as a professional, particularly given the nature of the mission parameters, he could not help but do so in as effective – not to mention, in as _total_ a manner as possible.

—ox-oxo-xo—

Deep within the bowels of Deepground's Midgar main facility, there had been an advanced 'training area' (not to say 'killing field'), principally used by the Tsviets and other high-level personnel. Its premise, based on SOLDIER's combat sims, was ramped up to singularly brutal levels by the clandestine corps; instead of waves of simulated encounters with 'monsters' composed entirely of mechanical nature, thousands of Deepground SOLDIERs were on-call surrounding the training area. Upon a challenger's entry, select SOLDIERs would enter the area in waves, each doing their level best to kill the challenger, who in turn did their level best to kill the waves of enemy SOLDIERs. This assault would continue until either the challenger or a round total of one hundred defenders had been killed (or until the challenger retreated, which counted as a win for the defenders, who would return to their on-call positions, or be shifted to less hazardous posts if they were lucky) – upon which, should the challenger have survived, they could exit the training area, only to enter again at any desired time to start it all over again.

The prize for undergoing this lethal gauntlet of foes (not including the grisly deaths of a hundred SOLDIERs, unless you were into that kind of thing) was an item of loot carried on the hundredth SOLDIER to enter the killing field. The Gold Moogle Doll, a very rare collector's item, was the brainchild of one of Deepground's more…cracked Restrictors – as such, just _one_ such doll could be redeemed at any vendor for a whopping 20,000 gil.

It was a wide-eyed Shelke the Transparent, once the former Tsviet had finally snapped out of her awed silence, who at Nanaki's prompting proceeded to explain the concept and conditions of Deepground's most advanced in-house training area, noting in passing that she herself had only completed the same area the single obligatory time necessary to be inducted into the Tsviets. At which point, given their new influx of knowledge, belated calculations began to be made by her listeners.

There were fourteen Gold Moogle Dolls on the table in front of Vincent, and one more clutched in Yuffie's hand.

Such dolls could only have been obtained by completing the aforementioned 'training area' mission – in short, by first killing the hundred Deepground SOLDIERs and then looting the hundredth body.

Fifteen of these tooth-rottingly cute little dolls represented fifteen _hundred_ dead Deepground SOLDIERs.

A carefully blank-faced Vincent Valentine then went on to explain that, as the area appeared to be where the vast majority of his foes had actually been lurking, he had lingered there for several hours – both in an attempt to thin out the avenues for reinforcements being called in to attack other WRO or AVALANCHE parties, as well as to take advantage of the rare and lucrative items of loot to feed the vendors and thus efficiently upgrade his equipment. In fact, he had only moved on after conceding that there was no end to the aforementioned reinforcements in sight, and he had more important places to be in order to actually _complete_ his mission.

"For instance," Vincent nonchalantly announced, pulling out his Ultima Weapon from the pile of dolls (the only weapon that he had not let Tifa put away) and showing his audience, "this used to be a toy gun. Now it is one of the most powerful weapons I have ever used. It took two hundred thousand gil to fully upgrade it."

"How about the Hydra?" Rufus wanted to know, his features admirably inscrutable apart from a hint of paleness. In that he was doing better than his Turks, who were still staring bug-eyed at Vincent. As were most of the room's occupants – after all, he had all but stated that the dinky little tribarrelled pistol in his hand had been upgraded through the sale of another ten Gold Moogle Dolls – that was, _another_ thousand dead SOLDIERs…

"Including the long barrel? A little over one hundred thousand gil for the full upgrade. Same amount for the Cerberus. A little less for the Griffon… I didn't use it much," he admitted with a minimalist shrug. "About same again for the accessories…"

Once again the calculations were silently run. Another four hundred thousand gil – another twenty dolls' worth…

"Rosso the Crimson…" Shelke almost whispered, shaken. "Earned her name for bathing in the blood of _one_ thousand SOLDIERs…"

But then, Yuffie Kisaragi was never one to let an aura of seriousness hang over a gathering when she could help it.

"Wow," she crowed. "She must've _really_ liked moogles!"

A moment of sheer bogglement was irreverently broken as Reno, Barret and Cid fell out of their chairs laughing for the second time in fifteen minutes, completely ignoring the ineffectual swats directed their way by Rude, Tifa and Shera (mostly due to better-hidden amusement, in the case of Rude and Tifa). Cloud and Nanaki quietly chuckled, while Rufus cracked up at the sight of Tseng actually _face-palming_ at the exquisitely timed quip.

Reeve, Elmyra and Elena were still more than a little green around the gills, but you couldn't please everyone.

Meanwhile, Shelke and Vincent shared a laden, thoughtful glance, as if each were seriously considering the possibility of a grain of truth lurking behind the ninja's witticism.

_Hmmm… No_, they mutually decided. Vincent broke off with a slight, grateful nod for her efforts in distracting the others from their needling of him, tactfully ignoring Shelke's puzzled blink at the gesture.

Cloud eventually regathered himself to ask, "So how many times?"

Vincent's eyes went distant. "About… thirty times, I think? I can't precisely recall… It was a particularly busy evening," he noted, gaze cutting across to Yuffie.

Reno snorted from the floor. "True… All that in one night, though? That's pretty cold, man…"

Vincent stared down at him reprovingly. "Coming from a Turk… that means almost nothing." Reno opened his mouth to snap back a witty rejoinder – only for a suddenly humourless Tseng to lean down and swat him upside the head. The roomwide mirth subsided quickly as they looked quizzically at the spectacle.

"Exactly," Rufus stated. "Although a better word would be…" he smirked, "_professional_. Perhaps even _mercenary_," the executive added, switching that leer to Cloud with added teasing and a possibility of veiled sexual innuendo (because he's just a magnificent bastard like that).

"Hey, it was a damn _compliment_, yo?" Reno exclaimed. "If you can't do the job, then don't bother signin' up. You get me, right Vince?"

Vincent twitched his shoulder in an absent-minded shrug and finished his whiskey. Cloud eventually relented from glaring at Rufus to reply, "No, you're right for once – it's not like we _all_ haven't stepped up and done the job in front of us. Even when it got bloody…"

"And it couldn't have happened to a better group of insane butchers," Tifa finished. "So, next round Vincent?"

Said query produced the predictable round of horror at the dearth of alcoholic cheer, which was thus remedied post-haste. And so the celebration continued, in Heaven as in Edge – which was to say, in ever-increasing states of inebriation and noise pollution.

Even Vincent found, to his understated delight, that the whiskey was actually having something of an effect now. Not much of one, but at least on a level with that of Cloud (high tolerance due to severe mako exposure) and Reno (high tolerance due to severe alcohol exposure). As such, with his tongue loosened a little, he participated in the inevitable, if informal debriefing volubly enough to satisfy his compatriots…at least by Vincent-speak standards.

_What happened on his infiltration?_ Killed Rosso, killed Azul, killed several thousand SOLDIERs, was interrupted killing Nero twice, Nero killed by Weiss, killed Hojo-in-Weiss—

("_**What**_?" rose the refrain.)

Yes, apparently Hojo had left a memetic copy of himself scattered across the WWN, and it had jacked Weiss for some reason. Standard Hojo in action, really.

(A great deal of exasperated profanity followed.)

_Now where was he? Oh right_ – killed Hojo-in-Weiss, was jacked by Chaos, had the Protomateria returned, tore his way into Omega, killed Omega-in-Weiss-in-Omega, did a Meteor impersonation on Omega, big boom killed Omega. The end.

(The ex-AVALANCHE, Shinra and assorted other personages stared at him. Apparently that was all they were getting. At length they collectively gave up and moved on.)

_Where was he all this time?_ The Lifestream, he answered – having Chaos ripped out of him so it could return to the Planet. (Nanaki was cheered to hear this; after all, Omega and Chaos _did_ serve vital functions.)

_Why didn't he call?_ The keypad was ruined, he answered, pulling it out to prove it – turned out something these new-fangled phones _couldn't_ stand up to was being left stewing in mako for weeks on end. (Cloud snorted; _he and Tifa_ hadn't had that problem. Shoddy, shoddy workmanship… At least, Reeve interjected, the locator signal had been preserved well enough once he came out of the Lifestream for the WRO's equipment to pick it up.)

_Did he still have the other demons?_ Probably, hadn't checked yet.

_Did he still have the Protomateria?_ Probably not, hadn't checked that yet either.

_Did he find any other awesome materia?_ Vincent snorted and tossed over the Fire, Ice and Lightning materia to the inquisite Yuffie – who promptly became the disgusted Yuffie. (Reno identified them as some of Shinra's crappier manufacted materia, issued to SOLDIER Thirds.)

_They'd found his Cerberus keychain in the ruins, did he want it back?_ Yes, yes he did. (Yuffie pouted, and began plotting revenge…)

_What would he be willing to exchange for the souped-up Hydra?_ Vincent blinked, and thought about that for a while. _How about the title for Shinra Mansion in Nibelheim?_ (Several ex-AVALANCHErs glared at Rufus.) Vincent blinked again, and thought about that for another while. _After all, _someone_ had to go over the mansion with a fine-toothed comb. Why not the man with the head start?_

Vincent cast his mind back to his latest pass through the Mansion, tempted but a little sceptical. Then he remembered that the vendor machines probably still worked there, which meant selling a few more of those Gold Moogles would fund a replacement for the Hydra. So he opened his mouth to agree – only to be distracted by a twinge in his feet. And then by an impulse that, if not for the already-imbibed alcohol, he would have summarily ignored.

"All right," he eventually responded, ignoring the sounds of disgust from their audience. "After all…" the tipsy ex-Turk suddenly smirked. "I need to try taking my boots off _somewhere_…"

Vincent surveyed the gaping, drooling masses with quiet satisfaction. It was Rude who recovered first, toasting him with a rueful, "Too easy." Vincent shrugged and knocked back his fourth drink.

Eventually Cid retrieved his jaw for long enough to mumble one last question.

_Was… was he DRUNK?_ To which Vincent replied with a proud smile: "Not yet."

* * *

><p>Vincent Valentine awoke the next morning to a collective bundle of sensations that he had not experienced for over thirty years. The stomach churning and flipping about like a busy laundromat machine, the desert-dry mouth with the rasping sandpaper tongue-texture, the invisible bratty toddler hopping one-footed on his bladder, the Touch Me's pinballing back and forth and leaving slime-splatter marks on the inner walls of his skull – all this could only add up to one thing.<p>

Well, two things. But if it was poison, then he'd administered the dose himself. Repeatedly. In glass tumblers, served over ice. And it was delicious.

It had been a good, if somewhat annoying night. The impromptu drinking contest had been a high point. The fact that he had won it, if by a more narrow margin than might have otherwise been anticipated, could only be considered an important bonus – after all, it was something of a tradition among the various circles of last night's revellers to play pranks on those who drank themselves under the table. Though come to think of it, there was a certain stench in the air, reminiscent of a Malboro that had been repeatedly dunked in marshland, which indicated that someone had ignored that tradition and pranked him anyway.

It was probably Yuffie's fault.

Vincent pried his eyes open, not without some effort, and carefully sat up to survey his surrounds. Location: the Seventh Heaven's spare room. Time: by the shadows cast by the morning sun, about 7 am. It was upon looking down at the foot of his bed that he realised what the prank had been. And by AVALANCHE's standard of pranks, this had been a tame one.

Yes. Definitely Yuffie's fault.

One metal-clad shoe had been wiggled loose, to the point that his left heel was jutting out. Which accounted for the horrid smell. Vincent swung his feet to the ground and gingerly leaned down to ease his dislodged shoe back into the correct position, manfully ignoring the compression on his bladder and stomach and blinking away the headache's heightened assault. It was as his swimming vision cleared that he espied the direct cause of his footwear's shift in position.

See, this was _exactly_ why it was Yuffie's fault. Tifa might have attempted the removal of his shoes, had she not been moderately 'under the weather' herself. But only Yuffie could have convinced the trio of children, now sprawled out unconscious in green-tinged shades of pale at the floor before his bed, to do it for her. (Well, perhaps Cid. But not when Cid himself was vulnerable to the inevitable payback, especially this early in the morning.)

Vincent straightened with a quiet sigh, assembling his immediate priorities with a certain amount of mental strain. Availing himself of the washroom, downing a large amount of water followed by coffee with perhaps some breakfast, fetching the first-aid supplies to tend to the three poisoned boys…

But first – opening the damn window. Damn that Yuffie!

* * *

><p>Hmm, probably <strong>voice<strong> next. Whenever I get around to it, anyway.


End file.
